


Every Old Town is Your Past Burning Down

by MovesLikeBucky



Series: Gift Fics 2019 [3]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Crowley's Bentley (Good Omens), First Kiss, Introspection, Kissing in the Rain, M/M, now with art!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:27:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21998236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MovesLikeBucky/pseuds/MovesLikeBucky
Summary: Those hazy motorway lights reflect off the hood.  Off the side mirrors.  Off the windshield.  Flickering like firelight.  Crowley doesn’t like firelight anymore.He’s still processing this.  This new chapter in his life.  Hell isn’t calling.  The world isn’t ending.  He’s free.  Freer than he’s ever been.  So why in the Heaven does he feel so trapped?
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Gift Fics 2019 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1581070
Comments: 46
Kudos: 168
Collections: AJ’s personal faves, Ixnael’s Recommendations, Ixnael’s SFW corner, Our Own Side





	Every Old Town is Your Past Burning Down

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tezca](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tezca/gifts).



> Part 3 of my Discord (and a few work friends) fic gifts! This time the wonderful Tezca gave me [Reno and Me by Waylon Jennings](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tf9sS0ru39c)!
> 
> This fic has some beautiful art now that I commissioned from [Cassie-Oh](https://cassieoh.carrd.co/)! Check out her carrrd and her art it's so beautiful <3

_What's the point of a race where you stay in one place_

_Believing there's somewhere to go_

_It don't matter which way you go, when you're calling the highway your home_

_Every old town is your past burning down, it don't matter which way you go_

_\---_

The lights on the motorway glowed hazy as Crowley drove past them. It was well past midnight, well past the time for respectable people to return to their homes. To their beds. To their loved ones, warm and waiting.

Crowley pushed the Bentley to go faster, no destination in mind. He’d been driving south. Past chalk cliffs and wide fields. Most of his day had been spent in his beloved car, miles away from anyone who cared or anything that could hurt.

The screen on his phone lit up, not for the first time today. A bright bluish white glow illuminating the cabin of the car. He didn’t answer. He hadn’t answered yet, and he wasn’t going to.

Sure, Aziraphale would be upset. But he’d get over it, he always does in a few years or decades. Besides, Crowley could be back at the bookshop within half an hour. Less if he floored it.

For once in his life, he doesn’t floor it.

Those hazy motorway lights reflect off the hood. Off the side mirrors. Off the windshield. Flickering like firelight. Crowley doesn’t like firelight anymore.

He’s still processing this. This new chapter in his life. Hell isn’t calling. The world isn’t ending. He’s free. Freer than he’s ever been. So why in the Heaven does he feel so trapped?

Someone else _is_ calling. His phone lights up again. He’s been gone for hours and Aziraphale is worried. The angel has his own problems and Crowley tries his damndest not to drag him into his. Aziraphale doesn’t need this mess. These doubts. This fear that the wrong move or the wrong breath or the _wrong thought_ might bring everything crashing down.

Ten miles outside London and he makes a wrong turn. On purpose, that is. If he keeps driving, maybe he’ll get away from these doubts, these fears.

He’s a fucking coward and he knows it.

They had been out to a nice lunch at Aziraphale’s favorite sushi place, deciding then to retire to the bookshop, as had been the norm for the past several weeks. With Armageddon averted and their respective sides no longer giving a toss, Crowley had seen no reason for pretense any longer. He’d rather be with Aziraphale than anywhere else.

Things were normal until halfway back to the shop, when Aziraphale had reached for his hand and entwined their fingers together. Crowley had felt his heart stop entirely (not that he needed it). Aziraphale, for his part, just carried on the conversation. As though he hadn’t just upended a demon’s entire existence with a touch.

When they returned to the shop, Aziraphale had busied himself with the continual task of inventory – made more continual by the new additions left by Adam. Crowley had taken his usual place on the sofa. He was having a grand time just staring at his own hand in disbelief and swearing to himself he could feel it tingling when Aziraphale decided to turn his world upside down one more time.

“You know, Crowley,” the angel said, gazing towards him fondly from the bookshelf he’d been working on, “I believe I very much love you.”

Crowley had arched an eyebrow at that, “It’s your job though, innit? All creatures, great and small, that whole nonsense? You love everything, Angel, I already knew that.”

He’d watched Aziraphale fumble with his signet ring, twisting it back and forth. “No, my dear, I’m afraid you misunderstand me,” the angel said as he started very slowly towards the sofa, “I’m _in love_ with you.”

And Crowley’s brain had all but shut down in that moment. Six thousand years of wanting but never being able to have or to know or even to acknowledge had done nothing to prepare him for the full force of Aziraphale’s loving gaze.

He should’ve said it back. He should’ve stood right then, closed the distance, wrapped the angel up in his arms and kissed him senseless.

Crowley had done none of those things. He had stammered a muffled apology and stormed out the door. He got in the Bentley and just started driving. No destinations, no plans.

That’s how he found himself here, speeding down the motorways and ignoring Aziraphale’s phone calls. Trying to drive away from his past while still steadfastly avoiding anything to do with the future.

He’ll fuck it up. He _knows_ he’ll fuck it up. He’s a demon. Part one of the handbook: How to Fuck Things Up (For Fun and Profit). Number One Ruiner of Things, him. Everything else in his long life had backfired at some point, why not this, too?

Sure, he might get a couple decades, a century if he’s lucky. Eventually though, Aziraphale would remember that he is an angel and Crowley is a demon and they are ‘hereditary enemies’. It would only be a matter of time.

The hazy mist turns into fat raindrops that splatter the windshield, fracturing the motorway lights into even more sparkles in the night air and on the hood of the car. Aziraphale would worry even more now. Crowley heaves a sigh and resigns himself, if Aziraphale calls again, he’s going to answer.

The phone rings. He can’t make himself pick it up. He lets it go to voicemail yet again.

 _Fucking coward of cowards_ , he tells himself, knuckles white on the steering wheel.

He notices he’s looped back around to Piccadilly Circus at some point; paying no attention to his direction. It doesn’t matter where he goes, he’ll always end up back at the same place.

He misses his turn yet again, resolving that next time – _next time –_ he’ll go back to the bookshop. He’ll apologize; talk some sense into Aziraphale. That this can’t be what he wants, what he needs.

He’ll let the angel down easy and it will all be fine.

A shorter buzz from the phone this time. A voicemail. That’s something, he thinks, that would be easier to deal with right now.

“Siri, play voicemail,” he says to the little contraption clipped to the Bentley’s visor.

“You have one new voicemail. From Aziraphale.”

There’s a beep and Aziraphale’s voice, albeit wavering and cracking, fills the Bentley:

“Crowley, blast it all, I know you’re there! You know I can’t stand these silly phone contraptions. Please just, pick up the phone, I’m sorry if what I said hurt you. I’m sorry if it wasn’t the right time or if you don’t feel the same. Of course, you don’t, do you? I should not have presumed to know your feelings without you making them clear, that was terrible of me. I just…there’s a storm on, and I know you’re out driving, and I just want you to be safe. We can talk about this; nothing needs to change. Just please…come home, Crowley.”

The voice mail cuts off and Crowley can feel a stinging at the corner of his eyes. Come home. And that was the crux, wasn’t it? Crowley has spent his entire life on the move, on the run from something. Even his flat, despite his beautiful art and astounding plants, has never been a home. There’s only one place in the world he’s ever felt he belongs. Definitely not Heaven, and never Hell. It’s been right here on Earth, in a bookshop in Soho.

Crowley turns the wheel sharply; he has to fix this. He can’t let Aziraphale think he doesn’t feel the same. He floors the gas and rockets back down Piccadilly on his way to Soho.

On his way home.

\---

Aziraphale comes out of the bookshop before Crowley has a chance to even park the Bentley, wringing his hands together with worry. Flitting about back and forth, starting towards the car, then turning around and going back to the door. Not even noticing the rain.

 _What a fucking mess I am,_ Crowley thinks to himself, _mucking things up._ He grips the steering wheel, fear coursing through him still.

He needs to say it. He _needs_ to say it.

Crowley cuts the engine and opens his door; Aziraphale still stands in the bookshop doorway, wavering between closing the distance and staying where he is. There’s nothing Crowley hates more than seeing that look on the angel’s face. It’s too close to Alpha Centauri. To a fight at the bandstand. To a neon-lit street in 1967.

Their eyes meet and that look makes Crowley’s fear melt away. He’s certain, Aziraphale wants this. Wants _him_. Crowley isn’t going to mess this up, because every time the angel has ever had that look on his face – has ever felt that fear and self-doubt – Crowley has been the one to erase it.

Crowley has been terrified over what? Over three words he’s afraid he won’t live up to? Three words he’s been screaming in the depths of his soul for six thousand years?

He slams the door, causing Aziraphale to flinch slightly. He rounds the car, storming towards the bookshop with renewed purpose, rain splattering his sunglasses and soaking him through. Closing the last bit of distance that he’s been shoving between himself and the angel since earlier today.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale says as he approaches, face softening, “Crowley, I’m-I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have assumed-“

Crowley takes Aziraphale’s face in his hands and kisses him, right there on the steps of the bookshop, in the pouring down rain. Aziraphale stills completely, and for one brief moment the fear creeps back in. He’s fucked it up, he’s gone too fast.

But then he feels strong angelic arms wrap around him, and for God’s-Satan’s- _Someone’s sake_ Aziraphale is kissing him back. It’s desperate and tender all at the same time, with millennia of words unspoken exchanged in this simple touch of skin.

Crowley reluctantly breaks the kiss and nuzzles the angel’s nose with his own, “Angel.”

“Yes, my darling?” Aziraphale is breathless and the endearment on its own is enough to nearly bring Crowley to his knees, but this is important.

“Aziraphale,” he says, running a thumb along the angel’s jaw, softly and reverently, “Angel I love you, so goddamn much. Feel like I always have.”

The smile that breaks on Aziraphale’s face is blinding. Like the very first sunrise in Eden.

“I love you too, dearest,” the angel says as he wraps his arms around Crowley even tighter and buries his face in the demon’s neck, “I have for so very long.”

“I’m sorry, Angel,” Crowley says, planting a kiss in Aziraphale’s hair, “I never should’ve run.”

“It’s alright, my dear,” Aziraphale says and Crowley can feel him smiling, “You were scared, and maybe I was moving too fast.”

“Bastard,” Crowley chuckles into the angel’s hair before leaning down to steal another kiss, “I think it might be raining.”

“It would appear so,” Aziraphale says, placing a few kisses along Crowley’s jaw, “Maybe we should go back inside, you can stay the night here, if you’d like to.”

Aziraphale’s eyes shine with mischief and it makes Crowley weak, “Oh, Angel, I thought you’d never ask.”

Crowley presses his lips to Aziraphale’s once more as they stumble backwards through the bookshop doors, leaving the real world on the street behind them.

In the years that follow, Crowley will learn to be loved as he has always deserved, by an angel who has always yearned to do just that. And Aziraphale will be loved in turn, by a demon who loves him more than Heaven ever could.

And Crowley will no longer feel like he needs to run, his past will burn down behind him, leaving this new life in its wake. No matter where he goes – what motorways he drives – wherever Aziraphale is will always be home.

**Author's Note:**

> Come and scream with me on [Tumblr](https://moveslikebucky.tumblr.com)!


End file.
